


whispers are never this careless

by HogwartsToAlexandria, Nonexistenz



Series: Marie's Events and Bang Fics [16]
Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Avengers Compound, Digital Art, Falling In Love, First Dates, First Kiss, Fluff and Humor, Getting Together, M/M, Memories, Panic Attacks, Post-Civil War (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:55:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23401087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HogwartsToAlexandria/pseuds/HogwartsToAlexandria, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nonexistenz/pseuds/Nonexistenz
Summary: "Tony, Tony, Tony… Can I call you Tony?"Tony snorts, "Think you just did.""How long have we known each other?""I wouldn't say we really do, actually." Tony crosses his arms, waiting for Wade to keep going."You are an interesting man, Tony Stark," he says finally.What just happened? Tony doesn't have the slightest idea, but something did.
Relationships: Tony Stark/Wade Wilson
Series: Marie's Events and Bang Fics [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1649737
Comments: 13
Kudos: 204
Collections: Marvel Rare Pair Bang 2019





	whispers are never this careless

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nonexistenz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nonexistenz/gifts).



> Heya! Last of my collabs for the Rare Pair bang 2019 and this time, once again, it's with the amazing Nonexistenz, inspired by her wonderful and hilarious Ironpool piece. 
> 
> We hope you'll enjoy what we came up with together and will let us know if you wanna!
> 
> This was betad and cheered by the amazing and _tireless_ (seriously, oh my God) Betheflame.

The One where Wade made a Move: 

He's still getting used to the state of things around here, but Wade has to admit, Tony Stark knows how to design a homely home. Wade's been living here, what, a month now, while the X-Men and New Shield track down the arms trafficker that bombed his house, and even though those circumstances are far from ideal, Wade's the kind of guy who's used to getting by, so this is certainly a step up. And that's not even considering, Tony Stark's other _talents_. 

Also known as, being fucking gorgeous. 

Wade was never a very measured guy, even before he became Pool, and the interest he's taken in the man of Iron? Well, he's not exactly considering how much or little he shows it, nor does he ponder too long on how he does it. He just does. Because he feels like it, and because that's who he is. Spur of the moment kind of guy. 

Today's no different. 

When Wade wakes up, still baffled at the level of comfort of the king-sized bed he's been made available to him and the quiet of his soundproof room, he rolls over to snore another fifteen minutes. Because he can. And then he drags his ass to the nearest shower, which, of course, is as luxurious as everything else in this damn compound. Fancy-pants Avengers. 

He's not complaining. 

Nor is he complaining about the discretion of the mail man when he gets a buzz in the special intercom that comes straight to his room - he whooped a _bit_ when the foxy widow showed him that one - his package has arrived.

~*~

"Honey bear, I was trying to get lunch, because I am a functioning adult, if only you and Pep would believe me." Tony pleads - he does not want to be force-fed vegetables. No thanks.

Rhodey levels him with a glare, pushing him forward firmly, "Stop talking, just keep walking. I know for a fact that you haven’t eaten anything solid for 48 hours, jackass." 

"Why why sourpatch, that's not--" Tony starts, intentionally whiny as he twists around Rhodey’s grip on his shirt to _puppy eye_ him - any means necessary and all that - but stops talking when his friend’s eyes widen and his mouth purses in disgust?

"What the fuck?!" Rhodey lets go of him suddenly, his hands waving in the air in front of him as he repeats the exclamation over and over.

Tony’s frozen in place, his eyes as wide as Rhodey’s had been. It’s probably a good thing he hadn’t been eating after all, or he might have choked on his food for all he knows.

Right there in the middle of the common room sits Wade Wilson, recently saved from the misery of the streets by one magnanimous Tony Stark, dressed in his suit as usual - nobody on the team has managed to catch him without it as of yet - except for one slight detail.

Wade’s sitting with his legs crossed atop one another, one of his gloved hands stroking a blonde _wig_ while the other waves its fingers at them from where it rests on his knee. And right above that knee is white fabric, and when Tony’s brain starts computing what his eyes are seeing, Tony sees it for what it is - a nurse costume. A _slutty_ nurse costume. 

“Not that this is not entertaining, but would you care to tell us what in the hell you’re doing dressed like that Spandex?” Tony raises an eyebrow, leaving Rhodey where he is rubbing his face repeatedly to fetch himself a smoothie in the open floor kitchen. 

“Why isn’t that obvious, cupcake?” Wade takes on a sugary sweet voice. Tony rolls his eyes, before looking back at him over his shoulder.

“Afraid not,” he smirks. 

That’s when Wade gets up, and also when Tony realizes the fool is actually wearing heels. He walks around Rhodey, and even through his mask you can tell he just winked at him, but then he’s coming closer and closer to Tony. He’s naturally taller than Tony but the heels bring that to a level where Tony has to actually lift his chin to look into his ‘eyes’.

Wade comes to a stop half next, half behind Tony and chuckles before he starts singing in a whisper, _“_ _All for you. If you really want it. All for you if you say you need it. All for you if you gotta have it…”_

“Janet Jackson? Really?” Tony steps away from Wade’s towering presence, snickering at the truly awful combination of images.

Rhodey makes a wounded noise behind them, “Alright, I’m out. Bye Tones. _Fuck’s sake._ ”

There’s something in the way Wade’s shoulders drop just slightly at the way Tony laughs then, something Tony can’t quite place, but it doesn’t feel right. 

“Bye Honey Bear,” Tony calls after him, before he looks up at Wade again, squinting his eyes at the wide white one he’s facing. “So, what’s all that about?” 

“All mighty War Machine not a fan of nurses?” Wade eludes.

“I think he prefers them brunette actually.” Tony fakes a shrug. 

"Tony, Tony, Tony… Can I call you Tony?" 

Tony snorts, "Think you just did." 

"How long have we known each other?" 

"I wouldn't say we really do, actually." Tony crosses his arms, waiting for Wade to keep going. 

It takes a minute. A minute Wade spends playing with the blond curls of his wig, pulling on them to let them swing up, again and again. 

"You are an interesting man, Tony Stark," he says finally. 

And then he turns around, and leaves the room in long, heeled strides, making sure to roll his hips as he goes. Not that Tony is looking. 

What just happened? Tony doesn't have the slightest idea, but _something_ did. 

He doesn't get to ponder any longer though, because just when he turns around to grab his smoothie, thinking he'll just go back to the workshop now that Rhodey's left, his phone rings. Pepper's company picture flashes across the screen. 

"Hey Pep--"

_"Did you eat yet?"_

  
  


The One where Tony can't Catch a Clue: 

Tony wakes up to the chime of text messages coming in in rapid succession. He must have face-planted sometime during his work-binge of the day because it’s dark outside, and the clock on the wall tells him it’s nearly 9pm. He sighs, a bone-deep exhale that relaxes his muscles as much as it clears his mind. He rubs his face, looking around trying to remember what exactly he’d been working on at the schematics and piled up scraps of metal and plastic around him. He doesn’t get to think about it further before another text arrives, louder to his ears now that he’s awake. 

Tony’s tempted not to look at it as soon as he sees the number it’s from, as well as all the other messages he’s got in the last… three hours. He’s not even added it to his contacts. Even though he’s had it for weeks now. Since that first text that had made Tony throw his phone across the room in surprise.

Wade.

He’s a puzzle to Tony, a very loud, very obnoxious puzzle. Most of the time. 

He hasn’t answered a single one of the man’s messages over the weeks. Doesn’t know what, or if he’s expected to answer them. They’re all pictures, and the occasional voice messages of Wade calling his name, usually at ungodly hours of the night - not that Tony is sleeping, he’s just not getting what the man is looking for, what reaction he’s trying to elicit. But he’s also not as annoyed as he thought he would be. Past that first time when he’d opened Wade’s message, unsuspecting and unknowing of whose number the incoming text was from, out in the open, with Pepper on one side of him and the entire original Avengers crew sitting around the same conference table as him. Past that first knee-jerk shriek he’d let out, the only thing Tony had really been able to feel was consternation. 

_Wade sucking on a red silicone dildo._ That's what the first picture had been. And all the following ones had been a variation of that, a concerto in lewdness, a symphony in puzzlement. 

It's a little funny now. Not enough that Tony would laugh at it, not enough that he's stopped feeling like a cartoon character with question marks appearing above his head every time but definitely enough that right past his reflexive eyerolls, Tony goes back to looking at the pictures and takes time to trace the goofy faces Wade makes every time - how he manages that with his mask on is yet another question Tony doesn't have the answer to. 

He sighs as he pushes his chair away from his desk so he can swing his feet on them, reclining against the once-plush material of the chair's back. He rubs his face. He ponders. 

Then Tony picks his phone up from his desk. Not like he's got anything to lose. Not like anyone has to know he's looking at Wade's pictures. 

Even if they are… oh God are they, obnoxiously inappropriate. 

The last one? The last one Tony looks at with a warmth pooling in his gut he refuses to acknowledge. 

Is it hot? For a man wearing red and black spandex from head-to-toe to be working out quite the way Wade is right in that photograph? His biceps bulging out as he's visibly on the upswing of a push-up?

Damnit. 

9pm isn't too late to pretend he's coming up for dinner. Even if he doesn't really feel like joining anyone who might be eating in his kitchen right now. 

Somehow, facing the Rogues seems better than staying alone in his lab though, with his bots, and his newest project, and Friday, and _Wade's neverending series of texts._  
  


The One where Wade's Mask Doesn't Fall but Does Shift: 

The tacos are good, Tony has to admit. The place they've got them from, a literal hole in a wall of bricks in a darkish corner of an even darker neighborhood of the city, looked unsanitary at best, food-poisoning made a business at worst, but _damn_. 

Tony takes another bite of his thick meal, careful not to let the definitely-not-healthy-lifestyle-suited sauce drip on his clothes and can't help but moan at the taste that floods his mouth. 

"Don't tell me, great, I know, best place in town, you cannot find any better anywhere, can try, but you won't." Wade shrugs before he sits down facing Tony, his back to the little wall that looks into the void. 

They're sitting on a dirty-looking but otherwise empty rooftop, the building Wade chose higher than most of the ones Tony saw - paid attention to - on the way here, through a block, or three. He's lost count. He hasn't been this entertained in a long while, even if it pains him - a little - to admit it. 

The night is dark, and there are police sirens and catcalls and barking dogs resounding all around and under them. 

And yet it is peaceful. 

Tony breathes the mixed smells of his mexican food, of Wade's peculiar gun powder and spandexy scent, and he closes his eyes, serenely, more so than he's been able to in a long long time, especially around anyone other than his bots, Rhodey, Pep or Happy. It's good. And scary. It's fucking scary. What the fuck is he doing? 

He must stare a little too long at Wade's masked face because the man stops whistling long enough to put his own taco on his knees and cross his arms over his chest. Tony doesn't look at the arms. 

"What?" Wade asks. He sounds amused. The little shit. 

"Nothing." Tony shakes his head, chuckles to himself as he looks at the ground for a moment before looking up again, straight into wide white masked eyes. "This isn't as weird as I thought it would be."

"I never thought it'd be weird." Wade shrugs, then finally, he rolls up the part of his mask that covers his mouth, just unclasping it below his jaw, and takes a big, slurpy, messy bite of his taco. 

Tony tries not to stare at the barely visible sliver of skin that was just revealed to him. It's dark, and the suit is made in a way that really only lets Wade's chin poke out to below his nose, and they aren't that close either. 

"Do you ever?" Tony forces himself to keep on track with the conversation, clearing his throat before precising himself, "do you ever think things are weird?"

Tony could swear Wade is raising an eyebrow at him, no way the fabric was sitting like this on his brow just a second ago. 

Wade hums. Taps his fingers to the paper wrap of his half-finished meal. 

"Being kept in that torture chamber for weeks was weird," he nods then. "Had my fun trying to make ole skinhead bitch laugh a bit. I think it kinda worked there at the end. When he thought I was dead. But Pool don't die." 

There it is again, the wink thing. Tony is getting better at reading the mask. Or he isn't. Could be getting it all wrong every time. 

He's struck speechless. Doesn't know what to answer to that. He does tend to forget this man has been through hell and back a few times, knows the neighborhood of hard shit same as Tony does. 

"Did I take your tongue, Anthony Edward?"

"Well, I do feel like a moron." 

"Hey!" Wade exclaims. He lifts a finger in the air between them, pointing at Tony. "We don't talk shit about Anthony Edward here." 

It's Tony's turn to raise an eyebrow, and then he laughs, the dead-seriousness of the man's tone a little hard to handle. 

"Just, sorry I was insensitive. Therapist says it's good I acknowledge that when it happens. So. Sorry." Tony shrugs. 

"Nah," Wade waves his taco offhandedly, "that's a game I used to play with my wife, most shit life, ramble godawful facts about your life till your opponent's got nothing to show for themselves except for marshmallows and pinky bitsy clouds." 

"You're not serious." 

"Dead," Wade grins. Tony doesn't look at the lips. 

"I'm not playing that."

"Might do you good, you don't know,"

"I'm really not." Tony scoffs. "That guy called you Wade earlier, right?" 

"Smooth redirection, I'll take it." Wade chuckles - Tony doesn't know if he's heard him laugh for real yet, doesn't think so. "That is, in fact, my name." 

"Oh come on, you know what I meant." Tony finishes off the last bite of his taco before crumpling the wrap and sucking the sauce that's dribbled on his index finger, then his thumb.

When he looks up, he finds Wade's taco held by a very loose hand on the man's knee, and Wade makes a broken kind of sound. His head is tilted to the side and Tony gets the uncomfortable idea that the man's entire focus is resting on him. Neither say a word. 

"He's a friend," Wade finally says. "A friend from before Pool." 

That's all he says, and Tony doesn't ask for more. The man's voice has taken a tone Tony didn't know it could. It's different. Tony’s interest is piqued. His heart is beating a little faster for some reason. And if Tony's biting his lip the next time he bows his head to look at his knees, at a loss of what to say or do while Wade finishes his dinner, Tony doesn't think it's because the man is staring at him all along. 

But it is.   
  


The One where Wade is Deadknight, and Tony Needs Him: 

Wade often wakes up in the dead of night. He's used to it. Thinks it's no biggie anymore. Except when he wakes up because of mother-almighty pains all over. 

Thankfully, tonight is not one of those nights. 

Tonight, he just needs to take a piss. Like massive. Like, wake up and jolt awake kind of deal. 

So he does. He gets up. Puts on sweatpants. Puts on a sweater. Pulls the hoodie up. Out of habit, or fear, or for comfort, who the fuck knows. 

The hallways are all dark and silent. Not creepy. Not creepy at all. But Wade's pressing needs don't let him find a few well-chosen lines to describe the spooky atmosphere of an all-heroes, all-solemn Avengers Compound where suits have been thrown off and pillows are getting snored and drooled all over. 

He finds the bathroom nearest to his room, and doesn't waste any time turning the light off and doing his business. Fuck yes. 

It's only when the drain stops making noise and he's washed his hands that the faint noises outside the door register in his brain. That never happens. He is all-aware, at all times. He gets out. Tries to find a light switch on the wall and after a few careful sweeps, he finally does. Light is shed on a poor poor fucking sight. 

"Anthony Edward!" Wade exclaims, then, when he fully takes in the state the other man is in - that is, sweating heavy droplets and whizzing each breath in, rolled in on himself against the wall with his chin on his knees - he rushes to him and lowers his tone. "Tony? Stark? You in there?" 

Tony's eyes are glassy and scared, his face is pale even when badass-Miss-FRIDAY lowers the light to accommodate the man - or so Wade gathers. His fingers are clamped around his knees and Wade isn't freaking out.

"Alright, alright, let's think, let's…"

"Mr Wilson, if I may, Mr Stark likes being told stories when he goes into panic attacks." FRIDAY's voice filters through the speakers around them, quieter than usual. 

Wade nods, and again. "Thank you." He takes a deep breath, sits down in front of Tony, puts his hands over Tony's and starts massaging them as he thinks. "A story, uh? How about the first time I met Peter? Yeah? I hear you two are big time pals, right? Trade undies and glitter wrenches kinda boy friends, yeah?" 

Tony doesn't react, not really. The only way Wade knows he's listening is the way his left hand moves just a little so Tony can press his thumb over his own, hanging on to it, so weakly, and yet so hard. 

"First time I saw the legging-wearing spider he was hanging, by a thread, literally, above a market place entrance… you know one of those big open market things with glass ceilings like a greenhouse. And I wasn't even doing anything to catch anybody's attention for once! Just a regular Pool, walking around, doing my thing. But the kid… you know, the teeny teen saw me and started flying across the place! Scared the shit outta me too!" 

Wade watches Tony's face carefully, trying to put some tone and drama into his story, because he tells the best fucking stories and he's not freaking out, of course not, but he finds his throat is a bit tighter than it should. He keeps caressing the back of Tony's hands, hoping it will relax him at least a bit. He tries to make their eye contact a little more focused, it's hard, but he thinks maybe the little light he sees coming back into Tony's eyes looks like progress. Doesn't know for sure, panic attacks management isn't exactly part of his skillset. 

"So, Pete starts following me building after building yeah? And I try to get him to get lost 'cause I've got shit to do and I know how young he is, no way I'm dragging a sixteen-year old into my merc' deals. But he won't leave!" Wade rambles, finishing on an indignant note that gets Tony frowning just a little bit, a small reaction that's paired with a hitch in his quick breathing. "I finally lose him around Brooklyn Bridge, grab a hitch with my pal Dopinder the badass taxi driver and don't see the kid for like, another two or three days. Don't think more of it, you know I'm a busy man, can't take an intern assassin in my business, doesn't work out too good," Wade chuckles, "but then I go out at night, go see my taco pal I took you to the other night? And he was right there, head down and thready sticky shit again! He'd followed me!" 

Wade tries his best to put as much energy into his retelling of that night, tells Tony about how he'd eventually yielded and how ridiculous Peter looked trying to eat a taco there sizes too big for his mouth and it starts working. He internally prays Miss FRIDAY will always be around 'cause she sure knows her boss. 

Tony starts breathing normally again, even gets an ugly little jerk of his cheek that could almost be a smile at Wade's impression of Peter getting excited over his collection of guns and the boy's first meeting with Blind Al. What a mess that had been. 

Wade only starts breathing again when Tony finally blinks and takes a deep breath in, looking both lost and awake all at once. Fucker can't make up his mind for his own sake, of course not. And then he stops breathing all over again when Tony frees one of his hands from under his own, and reaches forward. Wade doesn't fully register what he's doing until it's too late, until he realizes all he has covering him is his hoodie and Tony's fingers are brushing over his cheek, and then down his neck to press into where his veins are vibrantly pulsing blood in time with his crazy heart. 

Tony's hand isn't remotely steady against Wade's skin and somehow, it feels like it fits Wade's state pretty well too. 

"I forget you're like me," Tony says. 

He sounds exhausted, his voice rough and his face looks pale even in the low light. Wade smiles at him. 

"Guess we all got scars, Anthony Edward," he whispers, and then, mentally shaking himself a bit, "a pity you didn't choose the sexier route of a spandex hideout like me, though." 

That gets half a real smile from the other man. A win, no discussion there. 

"Metal is sexy," it's barely whispered, but it tells Wade he did it, his chaotic ass managed to soothe Tony Stark's mind at least for a while. 

Wade locks eyes with Tony then, there's things happening inside his belly that feel fucking weird and yet he feels good. He feels damn good. He mirrors the path Tony's hand has taken and puts one of his own in Tony's neck, leans forward just a bit - they're kinda very close already - and whispers. 

"You're sexy." 

Simple words that Wade doesn't feel slip, and doesn't regret saying, only notices Tony doesn't seem as taken aback or bothered by them as he'd thought he would, or did in the last few weeks. 

"Come on, champ', time to get Anthony Edward tucked in, yeah?" Wade pats Tony's shoulder a little more clumsily than his previous touches were - this man does _things_ to him, ok? - and gets up, pushing on his thighs to stand up again. He replaces his hoodie the way it was before Tony added his hand to the mix and reaches for Tony. 

Something passes between them, yet another unspoken admission, or promise, Wade doesn't know, reading humans he's attracted to can be a little difficult, and humans he's falling for? Well, let's not even talk about that. 

But Tony nods in the relative darkness and puts his hand in Wade's, lets him pull him up and keeps his hand there once he is standing. 

"Where to?" 

"A floor up." 

  
  


The One where They Fight and Neither Knows What They're Doing, But They Do It Anyway: 

Tony's face is a mask of anger all of a sudden and Wade honestly doesn't know what he's done wrong this time. Until Tony waves between them and hisses his next words. Then he gets it. 

"Don't you ever take anything seriously?" 

He shouldn't have sent that last message. He knows he shouldn't have. Well, at least he does now. 

They're in his bedroom, Wade's bedroom. Or, Wade was in his bedroom minding his business and sucking on a red lollipop with his mask half rolled up when Tony burst in. Like, literally burst in, sent the door flying and banging against the opposite wall and all. And started yelling. 

Very uncharacteristic. Very unexpected. 

It's taken a bit of time for Wade to recover from the shock but now he sits up on his bed and throws his legs off the side, looking between Tony and an invisible camera as confusion fades away to give some room for understanding, and frustration. He doesn't know if he's frustrated with himself, or with Tony. Doesn't know if Tony's words piss him off or they make sense. He wishes Vanessa had told him how it's done, how you get a man to understand you like she'd gotten him to understand her, like he thinks he understands Tony. 

Tony's fallen silent, his cheeks are a little red, he's breathing a little more heavily than normal and his hair is a bit mussed, more so than when he's just been working too much. He's wearing sweatpants and a fucking white tank top that lets Wade see _all_ of his arms and that's fucking pushing it. 

"Are you going to say anything? Why the fuck would you think sending me pictures of a porn actor when you haven't even talked to me in a week was fine? Why are you doing this? The other night at the tacos place? Was amazing, don't know if you got that, I had a fucking blast. And last week? When helped me out of my stupid godawful panic attack? Not many people can do that, and even less people bother. I thought it _meant_ something to you. But no, you had to go silent, and now this?"

Wade doesn't know he's made up his mind until after he's gotten up and is standing right in Tony's face. 

"You don't get it at all, uh?" He asks, but he knows, Tony just told him so. "I told you, everyone's got scars, Anthony Edward." 

He looks back and forth between Tony's frowning face and his pouting lips then, and again, he's made up his mind before Tony can think up an answer. 

Wade takes the final step that gets their bodies lined up, puts a gentle hand in Tony's while the other cups the man's jaw and he presses their lips together. He doesn't keep it chaste, he _shows_ him. He angles Tony's head in time with the presses of his mouth, and pushes his tongue against the seal of Tony's lips. He almost loses his composure when Tony doesn't resist even a second and instead starts responding to his kiss once the initial shock's wound down. 

They kiss for a few long minutes, no other sound in the room but that of their combined air and the slick, wet noises of their mouths meeting again, and again, and again. 

It feels different from when he kissed Vanessa. Everything does. But Wade thinks he's ok with it. 

He also thinks he needs some air. 

So he parts from Tony, lets go of him almost reluctantly, and very starkly notes that Tony seems to have just as much trouble letting go of _him_ , and steps back. 

"Think your therapist would tell you that was kind of insensitive." Wade crosses his arms over his chest. 

Tony looks a bit a lost for a second, and Wade doesn't know if he wants to have that conversation. 

"Are we done playing, then?" Tony crosses his arms as well. 

"See, there," Wade points a finger at Tony, "I was never playing." 

There's a bit of silence. And it stretches, and Wade can help but look at Tony's lips, red and slightly swollen from their kisses and he wants to go back to that, it was nice, but he really does need to get the fuck out of here for a bit. 

"I need some air." 

That's all he says. He knows it's shitty, knows Tony a bit now, but he can't bring himself to turn around and give him a better explanation as he walks past him and leaves his bedroom, only brushing their fingers together on the way. Needs to do some thinking, alone.

~*~

Three whole days pass between the moment Tony loses it in Wade's bedroom, the same moment that leads to kissing the same man who's been getting under his skin and living in his head for weeks, and the moment Wade comes back. 

Tony's lived three whole days of hell, of wondering, of thinking he fucked up the one really good, promising thing that's been happening to him, as unexpected as it's been. He's walked around the compound, paced in his workshop, tried his hardest to see what clues he hasn't taken and when he should have listened harder. He's tried as hard as he possibly can to stave off another panic attack, one a week is a rate he cannot possibly sustain. 

He's given up on working on any new or old project, tired to the bone and yet unable to sleep, or yell at Dum-e for poking him too hard in the ribs when the bot thinks Tony's been too still too long. 

Shower. Showers are good, or at least, he's working very hard with his therapist to get to a place where showers are good again. It's frustrating mostly, it's been almost a decade since Afghanistan, this should fucking be resolved already. And just as he thinks that, Tony's heart seizes as his mind replays the memory of Wade's voice and his ridiculous _"We don't talk shit about Anthony Edward here."_ , it makes him smile though, but not the same kind of smile it should be giving him. 

The shower runs hot, the steam grows thick, and Tony steps in, and tries to clear his mind. It takes a bit, but eventually, his muscles do start to relax, and he puts his hands on the tiles, his back to the glass wall. He lets the water fall over him, get his hair wet and sticking to his forehead and around his ears. He closes his eyes and practices breathing deeply. 

He doesn't hear it, the door opening and closing behind him. Doesn't hear it click, doesn't hear it bang, nothing. But he does hear when Wade clears his throat, and just for a second, Tony forgets where he is and how naked he is. He's just glad the man is here at all. 

But then he remembers and he can't help putting his hands over his junk, not that he's shy exactly, just that it seems a little off given how they parted ways. Tony tilts his head to the side, ready to ask, to apologize, to… but Wade puts a hand up in the air between them, stops him, then pulls off his mask. 

"Taking it seriously. No games. No fucking around. Yeah?" Wade says. 

He sounds as emotional as he did three days before, but the anger is gone. Relief fills Tony's veins and heart and he nods. Looks at Wade's face for the first time in plain light, and then, as Wade gradually loses every part of his suit, Tony lets his eyes wander down every new sliver of skin that's revealed to him, gasping when tears he hadn't felt filling his eyes finally run down his cheeks and Wade steps into the shower. 

He pushes Tony until they're both standing under the spray and his hands find Tony's cheeks in a mirror of their first kisses. Tony melts into the contact, for once, the hot water feels like a cocoon for this meeting, a warm blanket for the newfound feelings Tony can't and doesn't want to ignore. 

They kiss, and they kiss again, Wade dropping pecks after pecks after licks of his tongue over Tony's lips, caressing his tongue with his own in a wet, heated contact that slowly makes Tony lose his mind. He hangs on to Wade's hips, and then to his shoulders so the man will lean down and fold over him, encase him in everything that is strong, and everything that is tender about him, and about them together. 

This is the most unexpected relationship Tony's ever been in, not that he's ever expected people to want his company much, but Wade's done nothing but show him he wanted nothing more, for almost two months, and even with his head in the sand and the most oblivious blindfold around, Tony knows Wade does what he wants, and only what he wants. So for once in this fucking mess of a life, Tony lets himself enjoy this for what it is, the beginning of something good, with a good person, who doesn't say shit about _Anthony Edward_. And he laughs when Wade starts kissing his neck and squeezes his ass with both hands without preamble. 

"That's a sweet backside, you've got there, Anthony Edward." 

"Likewise, M'ster Wade Pool Wilson." Tony kisses the next words out of Wade's mouth, and they don't talk anymore for a good long while after that. 

And when a few days later, Tony's phone rings during an Avengers briefing, it's to the sound of Careless Whisper. And when Cap asks what it's about, the words come easy to Tony. 

_"Nothing much, just my boyfriend calling to check in on me."_

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Nonexistenz's art is also available for oggling and reblogging on [Tumblr!](http://nonexistenz.tumblr.com). 
> 
> 💚🦋


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